Dream, Do and Detach

As I am preparing for one of the most demanding yet spiritually promising journeys of my life, I keep bumping into people asking me the same question: “What do you mean by relying on God? You keep talking about ambitions, leadership and fulfilling potential but always end up saying that ultimately we have to rely on God. The two just does not go together, does it?”.

We, humans are fixated with logistics and outcomes. We want things in our way. We are attached to people, feelings, things and actions. Some of us like a little magic in the greyness of life but we find it hard to let go when we want things in our way. “We succumb to the lure of thinking we can control the course of our events. We line up everything and are illusioned that through sheer force of will we are able to manage through. But when we become addicted to this thinking, we are as vulnerable as crack addicts- high on determination we assume we can control. When we can’t, we spiral dangerously and out of control into a nosedive”.

You probably do what most people I know do (including myself)-you do, act, tolerate, debate, argue, beg God to give you what you want. After a while you become tired of your efforts and the outcome does not satisfy you. Well, of course it does not; it is not the one you asked God to deliver.

Then you pray harder, cry, trade and promise, that if you get what you want, you will become different and a better person.

Then you become exasperated by the toil for a solution yet the outcome is still not the one you expected. All along, you are attached to the outcome, YOUR outcome and get disappointed when God does not deliver. All this time you have been too busy being fixated and your mind fills up with cluttered thoughts and false promises. You refuse to learn the lessons or simply are too blind to see what God has brought to you. You do not take the lessons as a gift from God but as a burden, a hurdle you have to get through. When we perceive lessons like this, we limit our own understanding of God and ourselves, therefore we create a limited space for exploring what our potential is and can be.

In this process God does not have a clear space to rush in and fill you up with acceptance, love, clarity and strength. He cannot serve your learning on a silver tray; you need to be vigilant, sharp and open enough to see what is presented to you. Every situation you are in has a message for you; we are just walking blinded by our intelligence, logic and rationale! This is not what faith requires us to do.

Reliance on God means to accept that God has better plans for us. Relying on Him means to trust that His tests for us are with much better learning opportunities than we can ever cough up. When you detach, you start seeing doors you did not see existed previously. You start seeing options, paths that invite you to a different direction. (Perhaps a totally different direction from what you envisaged, yet in your gut you know that is the path you want to take! ) You meet people who seem to have a special message for you! You just know in the moment that when you let go of control, God will hold you in His hand and put you on the right track gently and lovingly. Amazingly, THAT is the path, the solution you were looking for all along! Your heart guides you but you choose to get busy in your mind that takes you into one way streets.